HUMAN-COMPUTER

INTERACTION
B.SANKARASUBRAMANIAN
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF IT
SSE

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• HCI is as a Discipline
• A set of methods for doing something
• A field must have results that can be taught and used
by people other than the originators to do something.
• Evolves from a set of points result to a set of
techniques to a set of facts, general abstractions ,
methods and theories.
• For a field to be cumulative, there must be compaction
of knowledge by crunching the results down into
methods and theories; otherwise the field becomes a
fad-driven and a collection of an almost unreachably
large set of weak points.

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• The most useful methods and theories are Generative ;
from some task analysis it is possible to compute some
insightful property that constraints the design space of a
system.
• In a formula : task analysis, Approximation and Calculation
• Prediction : if the Graphic System cannot update the display
rate faster than 10 times/Sec then the illusion of animation
will begin to break down.
• This constraint worked backwards has architectural
implications for how to guarantee the needed display rate
under the variable computational load.
• It can be designed against.

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• Human-Computer Interactive Computing System is for
some purpose and interact with humans in some human
context.
• Major source of failure is narrow optimization of design
that does not take into account the Contextual Factors
• The human aspects of Technical System :
• Applied Psychology
• Industrial Engineering
• Ergonomics
• Human Factors
• Man-machine Systems.

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• Design is where Action is
• Mainly based on
• Understanding constraints
• Insight into the design space
• Deep knowledge of the Design Materials – User,
task and the machine.
• Cannot be based on “ Usability Testing “
• Too late
• Too few degrees of freedom
• Not generative
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• Xerox Star/ Apple Lisa/ Macintosh
• Were due to Generative Nature of Design not from
“Usability Testing”
• User-centered vs Task-centered Design
• Key is – Understanding the Purpose and Context of a
System to allocating Functions between People and
Machine and to designing their interactions.
• Task-centered Design – the need for methods of task
Analysis as a central part of the system design
• Need to be structured to include both Analytic and
Implementation methods together in the same
discipline and taught together as part of a core.
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• Practioners who can only evaluate but not
design or build, Builders who cannot
understand human information processing or
social contexts of their design are at pitfall.

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• In developing and organizing the technical
results for the design and understanding of
the Interaction System.
• Ubiquitous computing ( Anywhere , Anytime
and Any Location) and CSCW Computer
Supported co-operative Work and Sensor-
filled Environments
• He –User
• She - Designer
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• CONSTRAINTS AND TRADE-OFF
• Human, Machine, Algorithmic, Task, Social , Cognitive ,
Aesthetics and Economical Factors
• Creation of Digital Library
• Virtual Medieval Manuscripts
• Medical instruments that allow a surgical team to
conceptualize, locate and monitor a complex Neuro-
Surgical Operation
• Virtual world for Entertainment and Social Interaction
• Responsive and Efficient Government Services
• Or smart phones where they are and understand limited
speech.

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• Interaction Designers create interaction in
Virtual worlds and embed interaction in
physical world.

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• INTRODUCTION :
• 1. Design Problem
• Save vs Delete Adjacent Menu Items
• 2. Car Driving vs Radio Knobs
• 3. VCR vs TV Programme Recording
• Designers think in terms of User’s task and
how to translate the task into executable
system
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• Design Focus :
• 1. Designs always not get better
• 2. but at least users are better.
• Trash Apps moving
• EC Directive 90/270/EEC , incorporated into
Member Countries Legislation requires
Employers to ensure the following when
designing, selecting and commissioning or
modifying the software :
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• Suitable for a task
• It is to use, where appropriate , adaptable to the
user’s knowledge and experience
• Provides feedback on mechanism
• Displays information to a user and at a pace
adaptable to the user
• Conforms to the practice of “Ergonomics “
• Designers and Employers can no longer afford to
ignore the User.

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• What is HCI ?
• Ergonomics Research Group – Second World
War – Study of interaction between Humans
and Machines ; the physical characteristics of
Machines and Systems , and how these affect
the User Performance; Human Factors include
Cognitive factors also; Physical, Psychological
and Theoretical aspects of this process.

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• Profound effects on the way that information can be
stored, accessed and utilized and consequently, an
effect on the organization and work environment.
• System Analyst :
• The influence of technology in the workplace, and
fitting the technology to the requirements and
constraints of the job.
• Mainly Central Concern - computer science and system
design
• The design , implementation and evaluation of the
interactive system in the context of user and task.
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• User : a single user
• Group of users
• A sequence of users
• Computer – any technology ranging from the General
Desktop Computer to a large-scale computer system , a
process control system or an embedded system.
• System must include non-computerized parts including
people
• Interaction – Communication between a user and
computer , be it direct (dialogue with feedback and control
throughout the performance of the task or indirect ( batch
processing or Intelligent Sensors controlling the
environment)

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• User is interacting with the computer to accomplish
something.
• Who is involved in HCI?
• The ideal Designer :
• Psychology and Cognitive Skills – to give her knowledge of
the User’s Perceptual, Cognitive and Problem-solving skills
• Ergonomics – user’s physical capabilities
• Sociology – help her understand wider context of the
Interaction
• Computer Science and Engineering – be able to build the
necessary Technology
• Business – be able to market it

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• Graphic Design – to produce an effective
Graphic User Interface presentation
• Technical Writing – to produce the Manuals
• In this book :
• How do this principles and methods from each
of the contributing Disciplines in HCI help us
design a better systems?
• CS, Cognitive Science and Psychology
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• Theory and HCI
• There is no theory of human task to support them in
design
• Useful : Accomplish what is required ; play music , cook
dinner and format a document
• Usable – do it easily and naturally , without danger of
error or etc.,
• Used – make people want to use it , be attractive,
engaging , fun etc.,
• Blend of Art and Science
• Functionality depend on User Interface

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• Design Focus :
• Quick fixes :
• Think “User”
• Try it out
• Involve the User
• Iterate

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• Fundamental Components of an Interactive System :
• Human User
• Computer system itself
• The nature of the interactive system
• CHAPTER OBJECTIVE :
• CHAPTER 1 :
• Psychological and Physiological attributes of the user,
providing us with a basic overview of the capabilities
and limitations that affect our ability to use computer
systems.

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• Have an understanding of the user that makes
successful designs.
• CHAPTER 2 :
• Input and Output devices are described and
explained and effects that their individual
characteristics have on the interaction explained.
• The computational power and Memory is
another important component in determining
what can be achieved in the interaction.
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• Chapter 3 :
• Having approached the interaction from both the
human and the computer side, we then
understand our dialogue between them, where
we look models of interaction.
• Chapter 4 :
• Take a historical perspective on the evolution of
the interactive systems and how they increased
the usability of computers in general.
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• THE HUMAN :
• Humans are limited in their capacity to process
information. This has important implication for
design.
• Information is received and responses given via a
number of input and output channels:
• Visual channel
• Auditory channel
• Haptic channel
• movement

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• Information is stored in Memory :
• Sensory Memory
• Short term ( working ) Memory
• Long term Memory
• Information is processed and applied :
• Reasoning
• Problem solving
• Skill acquisition
• error

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• Emotions influences Human Capabilities :
• Users share common capabilities but are
individuals with differences, which should not be
ignored.
• THE HUMAN :
• The user, after all, one whom computer systems
are designed to assist.
• User Requirements : Cognitive Psychology
• Help us to know what people find it easy and how
they can help them by encouraging these things.

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• How humans perceive the world around them, how they store
, process and solve them and they physically manipulate
objects.
• A simplified model of what is actually going on.
• Card Menon and Newwell (1983)
• Model Human Processor
• The perceptual system
• Handling sensory stimulus from the outside world
• The motor system, which controls action, and the cognitive
system, which provides the processing needed between the 2.
• The model also includes principles of operations which dictate
the behavior of the system under certain conditions.
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• Basic 3 components of the system :
• Input-output , processing element and memory
• Information processing by Human involves
problem solving, learning and consequently
making mistakes.
• Also influenced by social and organizational
structure.
• Input-output channels , the senses and
responders or effectors.

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• In an interaction with a computer the user
receives information that is output by a
computer, and responds by providing input to the
computer – the user’s output becomes input and
vice versa.
• Sight may be used primarily in receiving
information from the computer, but it can also be
used to provide information to the computer.
• For ex by fixing on a particular screen point when
using an eyeqaze system.
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• Input through senses and the output through the
motor control of the effectors.
• There are major 5 senses :
• Central :
• Sight
• Hearing
• Touch
• Auxiliary :
• Taste
• Smell gives warning of malfunction.
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• No of effectors :
• Including the limbs
• Fingers
• Eyes
• Heads
• And
• Vocal system
• Fingers play a primary role :
• Through typing or mouse control
• Voice eye head and body position.

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• Graphical Interface :
• With menus
• Icons
• Windows
• Primarily by sight
• Or ear “ beep” sound
• Touch also “ keys moving” or “click” sound or
orientation of Mouse.
• Sight and hearing ; by words from a book or from
another person.
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• VISION :
• Divide visual perception in 2 stages :
• The physical reception of the stimuli from the
outside world
• And processing and interpretation of the
stimulus
• The interpretative capabilities of visual
processing allow images to be constructed
from incomplete information.
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• Visual perception :
• The information received by the visual
apparatus must be filtered and passed to
processing elements which allows us to see
coherent scenes, disambiguate relative
distances and differentiate color.
• How we perceive size and depth, brightness
and color, each of which is crucial to the
design of visual interfaces.

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• Perceiving size and depth :
• Size is related to distance
• Object of the same size at different distances
have different visual angles
• Object of the different sizes and different
distances may have the same visual angle.
• Visual acuity :
• The ability of a person to perceive finer detail.
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• Law of size constancy :
• Our perception of the object size remains constant even if the visual
angle changes.
• This means that our perception of size relies on factors other than
the visual angle.
• One of these factors is our perception of depth :
• Another is cue :
• to determine the relative positions and distances of the objects
which we see.
• If objects overlap, the object which is partially covered to be seen in
the background, and therefore further away.
• Similarly the size and height of the object in our view of field
provides a cue to its distance

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• 3rd cue is familiarity
• If we expect an object to be of a certain size then we can
judge its distance accordingly.
• Perceiving brightness :
• Subjective reaction to the levels of light.
• Affected by Luminance which is the amount of light emitted
by an object.
• Depending on the amount of light falling on the object’s
surface and its reflective properties.
• Can be measured using a photometer.
• Contrast is related to luminance; function of the luminance
of the object and its background.

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• Described in terms of amount of luminance that gives a just
noticeable difference in brightness.
• Visual system itself also compensates for changes in brightness.
• In dim lighting, the rod (sensitive) predominates vision. In normal ,
cone takes over.
• Visual acuity increases with increased luminance.
• Reason for using high luminance display unit.
• As luminance increases, flicker also increases.
• Speed of switching is less than 50Hz –light flickers
• At over 50 Hz, flicker is also more noticeable in peripheral vision.
• The larger the display ( the more peripheral vision it occupies , the
more it will appear to flicker).

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• Perceiving color :
• Color is made of 3 components : hue , intensity and saturation.
• Hue – determined by the spectral wavelength of light
• Blue – short
• Green – medium
• Red – long
• 150 hues can be discriminated by Human
• Intensity – brightness of the color
• Saturation – the amount of whiteness in the color
• By varying in the 2 we can perceive 7 million colors in the region.
• The no of colors by training -10
• Cones are sensitive to color.

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• The capabilities and limitations of visual
Perceiving
• Perception is subjective
• Our expectations affect the way in which the
image is perceived.
• The retina image is moving, the image that
perceive is stable.
• Color and brightness of objects are perceived
as constant, in spite of changes in luminance.
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• An ambiguous shape :
• B or 13
• The Muller-Lyer Illusion : which line is longer?

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• PONZO ILLUSION :
• Tend to magnify Horizontal line and reduce
Vertical. So a square needs to be slightly
increased in height to appear square and lines
will appear thicker if horizontal rather than
vertical.
• Optical Symmetry
• Tend to the center of a page as being little above
the actual center.
• Too low down.

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• The perception and processing of text is a special
case that is important to interface design, which
invariably requires some textual display.
• Process of reading :
• The visual pattern of the word on the page is
perceived.
• It is then decoded with respect to the internal
representation of the Language.
• The final stage of processing include syntactic and
semantic analysis and operate on phrases or
sentences.
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• Saccades : eye makes jerky movements followed by
fixations
• Perception occurs during fixations period
• Regressions : The eyes moves forward and backwards
• Removing a word shape clues is detrimental to reading
speed and accuracy.
• Legibility : speed at which the text can be read.
• Longer line length
• Fewer words to a page
• Orientation and familiarity of the medium of page

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Contrast in the visual display :
 A negative contrast ( dark characters on a light
screen) provides higher luminance and
therefore increased acuity, than a positive
contrast.
 Negative contrast provides higher luminance,
and therefore ,increased acuity, than a
positive result.

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• Hearing :
• Closing our eyes, we can say where the sounds
are coming from and estimate how far they are.
• The Human Ear:
• Processing sound :
• Pitch is the frequency of sound.
• Loudness is proportional to the amplitude of
sound; the frequency remains constant.
• Timbre relates to the type of sound; made by
different instruments.

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• How sound could be added to an Application
• 1. Attention
• 2. Status Information
• 3. Confirmation
• 4. Navigation
• Touch :
• Haptic Perception
• Virtual reality games.
• Computer generated objects but they have no physical sensation of
objects.
• Haptic perception is the secondary source of information ,for those
whose other senses are impaired , it may be vitally important.
• Braille may be the primary source of information in the interaction.

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• Sensory Receptors to different stimuli
thermoreceptors – respond to heat and cold
• Noicereceptors – responds to intense pressure .
Heat and Pain
• Mechnoreceptors – respond to pressure.
• Rapidly adapting Mechnoreceptors – respond to
immediate pressure as the skin is intended.
• React more quickly with increased pressure.
• Slowly adapting Mechnoreceptors – respond to
continuously adapting pressure.

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• 2 point threshold test
• The greater the distance , the lower the sensitivity
• Kinesthetic :
• Awareness of the body and limbs.
• Rapidly adapting : which respond when a limb is
moved in a particular direction
• Slowly adapting : which respond to both movement
and static position.
• Positional receptors –which only respond when a limb
is in static position.

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• This perception affects both comport and performance
• A typist :
• Awareness of the relative positions of fingers and feedback from
the keyboard
• Movement :
• Consider the motor control and how they way they move affects
our interaction with computers.
• The stimulus of the question is received through the sensory
receptors and transmitted through the brain.
• The question is processed and a valid response is generated.
• The brain then takes the appropriate muscles to respond. Each of
these stage takes time which can be roughly divided into reaction
time and movement time.

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• Movement time is largely dependent on the Physical characteristics
of the subjects ;
• Their age and fitness ,for ex
• Reaction time varies according to the sensory channel through
which the stimulus is received.
• Can react to an auditory signal ( 150 ms), visual signal ( 200 ms) and
pain in 700 ms.
• Factors such as skill or practice can reduce reaction time and fatigue
can increase it.
• Accuracy :
• Speed of reaction results in reduced accuracy.
• Depend on the task and user.
• Faster responses.

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• Time taken to move a particular target on a screen.
• Target may be a menu, button or an icon.
• The time taken to hit a target is a function of the size of
the target and the distance that has to be moved.
• Fitt’s law :
• Movement time = a+blog2 (distance/size +1)
• Target be as large as possible
• The most frequently used option be placed at the top
of the menu.

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A model of structure of memory

Short term Long term

Sensory memory memory

Rehearsal
Attention

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• Our Memory contains knowledge of actions or
procedures.
• Allows us to repeat actions, to use language,
and use new information received via our
senses.
• Also gives us sense of identity, by preserving
information from our past experiences.

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• Memory is the second part of the model in the
user-interaction system.
• Memory is associated with each level of
processing
• Memory is structured and the activities that takes
place in the system.
• Sensory buffers
• Short-term memory or working memory
• Long term memory

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• Sensory Memory :
• Acts as buffers for stimuli received through the
senses
• A sensory memory exists for each sensory
channel : icononic memory ( by moving finger in
front of an eye) for visual stimuli, echoic memory
( the ability to ascertain from which direction
sound comes ) ( repeat the questions you asked
for ) for aural stimuli brief “play-back” of
information, haptic memory for touch
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• Measurement :
• Determining the length of a sequence which can be remembered in
order.
• Items to be freely recalled in order.
• Items are chunked and successful formation of a chunk is “closure”
• Money given by ATM.
• Attention :
• Concentration of the mind on one out of a number of competing
stimuli or thoughts.
• Level of interest and need.
• Information received by sensory memories is passed into a more
permanent store or overwritten or lost.

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• Short term Memory :
• Acts as a “scratch-pad” for temporary recall of
information.
• If a subject fails to do this or is prevented from doing
so by interference , the subject is liable to lose track of
what she is doing and make consequent errors.
• Long-Term Memory :
• Factual information
• Experiential knowledge
• Procedural rules of behavior

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• Huge capacity
• Slow access time
• Forgetting occurs more slowly
• Information is placed there from working
memory through rehearsal.
• Long term recall after minutes is the same as
that after hrs or days.

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• Long term Memory Structure :
• Episodic memory we can learn new facts or
concepts from our experiences.( Memory of
events and experiences in serial form) or
semantic (structured records for facts, concepts
and skills that we have acquired ) memory
• Semantic memory is structured in some way to
allow access to information, representation of
relationships between pieces of information, and
inference.
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• Semantic Network ;
• Items are associated to each other in classes
and may inherit attributes from parent classes
• This includes how knowledge is organized in
association.

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• A frame based representation of knowledge :
Dog

Fixed
Legs : 4
Default :
Carnivorous
Sound : Bark
Variable :
Size :
Color ;

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 COLLIE

FIEXED :
BREED : DOGS
TYPE : SHEEP DOG
Default :
Size : 65 mm
Variable :
color

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• Structured representation such as frames and
scripts organize information into Data Structures.
• Slots in these structures allow attribute value to
be added.
• Frame slot may contain default, fixed or variable
information.
• a frame is instantiated when the slot is filled with
appropriate values
• Frames and scripts can be linked together in
networks to represent Hierarchical structured
knowledge.
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• Slots can also contain procedural knowledge.
• Actions or operations can be associated with a
slot and performed , for example, whenever
the value of the slot is changed.
• Frames extend semantic nets to include
hierarchical information.
• They represent knowledge items in a way that
makes explicit the relative importance of each
piece of information.
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 A script for visiting vet
Roles : vet examines
Diagnoses
Treats
Scripts for a visit to a vet
Owner brings dog in
Entry condition: dog ill
Pays
Vet open
Takes dog out
Owner has money
Scenes : arriving at
Result : dog better
reception
Owner poorer
Waiting in room
Vet richer
Examination
Props : examine table
Paying
Medicine
Tracks : dog needs
instruments
medicine
Dogs need operation

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• A script represents this default or stereotypical information,
allowing us to interpret partial descriptions or cues fully.
• a script comprises a no of elements , which like slots ,can
be filled with appropriate information
• Entry condition : conditions to be fulfilled for the scripts to
be activated
• Result : condition that will be true after the script is
terminated
• Props :
• Objects involved in the events described in the script
• Roles
• Actions performed by particular participants.

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• Scenes – the sequence of events that occur
• Tracks – a variation on the general pattern representing an
alternative scenario
• Final type of knowledge representation
• Production System :
• The representation of the procedural knowledge , our
knowledge of how to do something
• Condition –action rules are stored on the permanent
memory
• Information coming into short term memory can match a
condition in one of these rules and results in the action
being executed.

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• For ex, a pair of production rules might be
• If dog is wagging tail
• THEN pat dog
• If dog is growling
• THEN RUN AWAY
• LONG TERM MEMORY PROCESSES :
• Storage or remembering of information
• Forgetting or information retrieval
• By rehearsal

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• Ebbinghaus :
• Total time Hypothesis :
• The amount learned was directly proportional to the
amount of time spending.
• Learning time is most effective if it is distributed over
time.
• Post office workers learning by one hr typing over
many weeks.
• More difficult to remember a set of words representing
a concept than on objects.
• Sentences are still easier to memorize

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• 2 theories of Forgetfulness :
• Decay and Interference
• The information held in long-term memory may eventually be
forgotten
• Non-sense syllabus lost logarithmically, that it was lost rapidly to
begin with , then more slowly.
• Jost’s law :
• If 2 memory trace are equally strong at a given time the older ones
will be more durable.
• Retroactive inference :
• Acquires new information it causes the loss of old information.
• Changing telephone nos makes it more difficult to remember old
no.

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• Proactive Inhibition :
• Sometimes the old memory trace breaks through and
interferes with new information
• Forgetting is also affected by emotional factors
• Subjects given emotive words and non-emotive words
found the former harder to remember in the short
term but easier in long term.
• This observation tallies with our experience of selective
memory.
• Tend to remember positive information rather than
negative and highly emotive events rather than
mundane.
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• Tip of the tongue ‘experience ‘
• Some information is present but cannot be satisfactorily accessed.
• Thirdly information may not be recalled but may be recognized or
may be recalled only with prompting.
• Third process of Memory :
• Information Retrieval , recall and recognition
• Recall the information is reproduced from memory
• The presentation of the information provides the knowledge
• Recognition :
• The presentation of the information provides the knowledge that
the information has been seen before.

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• Recall can be assisted by provision of retrieval
cues , which enables the subject to quickly
access the information in memory.
• One of the cue is “Categories “
• The use of vivid imagery is a common cue to
help people remember information.
• It is known that people often visualize a scene
that is described to them.

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• Thinking : Reasoning and Problem Solving
• How it is processed and manipulated
• Animals receive and store information , they can
use it the way humans do it
• AI has produced machines which can see and
store information but their use is limited on small
domains.
• Thinking can depend on different amounts of
knowledge. Some thinking activities are very
directed and the knowledge required is
constrained.
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• Others require vast amount of knowledge from
different domains
• Performing a subtraction requires a small amount
of knowledge from a constrained domain but
understanding newspapers so many.
• Reasoning
• We use knowledge we have to draw conclusions
or infer something new about the domain of
interest
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• Deductive :
• Derives the necessary logical conclusion from the given
premises
• If it is holiday he will go to native place
• Tomorrow holiday
• He will go to native place
• Inductive :
• The generalization from cases we have seen information
about cases we have not seen
• Every dog has a tail
• So Dogs have tail
• Even a single instance failure will make it false

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• If a card has vowel on one side does it have even no on
the other
• Adductive reasoning
• Reasons from a fact to the action or state caused it
• derive explanations for the events we observe
• Sam too fast driving means having drunk
• Observes fast driving , that means drunk
• Until they have evidence to support an alternative
theory or explanations
• Events always follows an action.

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• Problem Solving
• Finding a solution to an unfamiliar task, using the knowledge we
have
• Gestalt : both reuse of knowledge and sight
• Newell and Simon : Problem Space Theory- Mind is a limited
information processor.
• Gestalt :
• Reproducing known responses or trial and error
• Problem solving is both productive (Insight and restructuring of the
problem and reproductive ( draws on previous experience
• Reproductive problem – could be a hindrance to finding a solution.

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• Problem space theory
• Problem space comprises problem state , and
problem solving involves generating these
states using legal state transition operators
• The problem has an initial state and a goal
state and people use operators to move from
the former to the latter.
•

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• Heuristics
• Means-end Analysis :
• Minimize the difference between initial state and
the goal state.
• Carry or push or drag them
• It operates within the constraints of the Human
Processing System, so searching the problem
space is limited by the capacity of the short-term
memory and speed at which the information is
retrieved.

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• General Problem Solver :
• Problem solving in well-defined domains
• To solve a programming problem
• These problems may be unfamiliar but the
knowledge to solve them requires is present in
the statement of the problem and the expected
solution is clear.
• Finding the knowledge required to solve the
problem may be part of the problem or specifying
the goal may be difficult.

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• Analogy in problem solving
• Novel problem
• Mapping knowledge relating to a similar known
domain to a new problem – called analogical
mapping
• A doctor is treating a malignant tumor. In order to
destroy it he needs to blast it with high-intensity
rays. However these will also destroy the healthy
tissue surrounding the tumor. If he lessens the
rays intensity the tumor will remain. How does he
destroy the tumor?
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• Fire low-intensity rays from different directions converging
on the tumor.
• A general is attacking a fortress. He can’t all his men in
together as the roads are mined to explode if large number
of men cross them. He therefore splits them into small
groups and sends them in on separate roads.
• Skill acquisition :
• By comparing between a novice and expert behavior in the
given domain.
• Expert Players chunk the board configuration in order to
hold it in short-term memory.
• Use large chunks than the less experienced and can
remember more detail

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• Chess : of Human Intelligence
• Players do not consider large no of moves in
choosing their move, nor did they look ahead
more than 6 move
• Masters considered no more alternatives than
the less experienced, but they took a less time
to make a decision and produce better move.

85
• ACT identifies 3 level of skill :
• 1. the learners use the general purpose rules
which interpret facts about a problem
• This is slow and demanding on memory
access.
• 2. the learner develops rules specific to the
task
• 3. The rules are tuned to speed up
performance.
86
• General mechanisms are provided to account for the
transitions between these levels.
• Proceduralization – a mechanism to move from the
first to the second.
• It removes the parts of the rule which demand
memory access and replaces variables with specific
values.
• Generalization : moves from second level to the third.
• Generalizes from the specific cases to general
properties of those cases.
• Commonalities between the rules are condensed to
produce a general-purpose rule.
87
• Can instantiate the rule by retrieving information from memory.
• If cook(type, ingredients, time)
• Then cook for : time
• Cook(casserole[ chicken, carrots, potatoes ] , 2 hrs
• Cook(casserole[ beef, dumplings, carrots ] , 2 hrs
• Cook(cake, [ flour, sugar, butter , eggs] , 45 minutes
• Gradually knowledge becomes proceduralized and have specific
rules for each case :
• If type is (Casserole)
• And Ingredients [chicken, carrots, potatoes]
• THEN
• Cook For 2 Hrs

88
• Generalized from these rules to produce more general
rules, which exploit their commonalities
• If type is Casserole
• And ingredients are ANYTHING
• Then cook for
• 2 Hrs.
• First stage – uses knowledge extensively
• Second stage – relies upon known procedures
• Third state – represent skilled behavior
• Such skilled behavior is efficient but may cause errors
when the context of the activity changes.

89
• Errors and Mental Modes :
• Interpreting and manipulating information is quite
impressive.
• Do make mistakes :
• Some are trivial; resulting in no more than temporary
inconvenience or annoyance
• Other may be more serious; requiring substantial effort
to correct.
• An error may have catastrophic effects, as we see “
Human Error “ results in plane crash or nuclear plant
leak.

90
• If a pattern of behavior has become automatic and we change some
aspect of it , the more familiar pattern may break through and
cause an error.
• Incorrect understanding of a model of a situation or system.
• Mental Modes : people build their own theories to understand the
casual behavior of the system
• Defects :
• Partial
• Unstable and subject to change
• Can be internally inconsistent , logical consequences of their beliefs
• Often unscientific and may be based on superposition rather than
evidence.
• Based on incorrect interpretation of the evidence.

91
• Errors may occur if the actual operations differ from mental
model.
• Emotion :
• Positive emotions enable us think more creatively to solve
complex problems whereas negative emotion pushes us
into narrow, focused thinking
• William James ;
• Emotion was the interpretation of the physiological
response, rather than the other way around.
• Physiological processes are in fact is too slow to account for
the emotional reactions, and physiological responses to
some emotional states are too similar, yet they can be
easily distinguished.

92
• Participants reported physical symptoms but not the
emotion which suggests that emotional response is more
than a recognization of physiological changes
• Schatchter and Singer :
• Proposed a 3rd interpretation
• That emotions result from a person evaluating physical
responses in the light of the whole situation
• Pounding heart will be interpreted as excitement if we are
in a competition and fear if ourselves we find under attack.
• Emotion involves both physical and cognitive events.
• Affect – body responds biologically to an external stimulus
and we interpret it as some as a particular emotion.

93
• In situation of stress, people will be less able
to cope up with complex problem solving or
managing difficult interfaces and
• People are relaxed they will be more forgiving
of limitations in the design.
• Interfaces that promote positive responses -
by using aesthetics or reward –then they are
likely to be more successful.

94
• INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES :
• These differences may be long term such as
sex, physical capabilities and intellectual
capabilities
• Shorter term – include the effect of stress or
fatigue on the user.
• Visual interfaces exclude those who are
visually impaired

95
• Psychology and the Design of
Interactive Systems.
• Recognition is easier than recall and allows a user
to select commands from a set ( such as a menu)
rather to input them directly.
• Guidelines :
• Recall is assisted by the provision of retrieval of
cues so interfaces could incorporate recognizable
cues wherever possible

96
• Models to support design
• Psychological theory has led to the development of
analytical and predictive models of user behavior.
• Specific models for problem solving
• Others of physical activity
• Other attempt a more comprehensive view of
cognition.
• Some predict how a typical user would behave in a
given situation, others analyze why particular user
behavior occurred.

97
• Techniques for evaluation :
• In addition to theoretical understanding of the
human user, psychology also provides a range
of empirical technique which we can apply to
evaluate our designs and systems.

98
• A computer system comprises various elements, each of which
affects the user of the system
• Input unit for text interactive use allowing text entry , drawing and
selection from the screen :
• Text entry – traditional text entry, keyboard, phone text entry,
speech and handwriting.
• Pointing – principally the mouse, but also touchpad, stylus and
others
• 3D interaction devices.
• Output display devices for interactive use :
• Different types of screen mostly using some form of bitmap display
• Large and situated displays for shared and public use
• Digital paper may be usable in the near future.

99
• VR Systems and 3D visualization which have special
interaction and display devices
• Various devices in the physical world :
• Physical controls and dedicated displays
• Sound smell and haptic feedback
• Sensors for everything including movement, temperature
and bio-signs
• Paper output and input : the paperless office and the less
paper office
• Different types of printers and their characteristics,
character styles and fonts.
• Scanners and Optical Character Recognition

100
• Memory :
• Short term Memory : RAM
• Long term Memory : Magnetic and optical
disks
• Capacity limitations related to document and
video storage.
• Access methods as they limit or help the user.

101
• Processing :
• The effects when the system runs too slow or
too fast, the myth of the infinitely fast
machine.
• Limitations on processing speed
• Networks and their impact on system
performance.

102
• Introduction:
• Interaction is a process of information transfer
• Variants of basic devices :
• Different hardware configuration
• Desktop
• Laptop
• PDA ( Personal Digital Assistants)

103
• Level of Interaction:
• Batch processing :
• Large mass-batch data entry
• Dump a pile of punched card onto a reader, press
the start button and return a while later.
• Richer Interaction – Everywhere, Everywhen
• TextEntry Devices :
• The Alphanumeric Keyboard :
• The QWERTY Keyboard
• Ease of learning – Alphabetic Keyboard
104
• Ergonomics of use – DVORAK keyboard and split design
• Assigns the letters to different keys.
• Biased towards right-handed people
• Chord keyboards :
• Only a few keys, 4 or 5 are used and letters are
produced by pressing one or more of the keys at once.
• Microwriter:
• The pattern of multiple Key -presses is chosen to
reflect the actual letter shapes.

105
106
• Phone Pad and T9 Entry :
• Handwriting recognition :
• Pen-based Computer recognizes hand-writing
input
• Gesture recognition :
• Rather than commands , to tell systems what to
do, for ex drawing a line through a word in order
to delete it.
• Signature authentication :
• To identify the user

107
• Speech recognition :
• Noise level
• Confidentiality
• Telephone information system
• Access for the disabled
• In-hands occupied situation
• Positioning Pointing and Drawing
• CAD ( Computer –Aided Design) where positioning and
pointing
• To point, position and select items either directly or
manipulating a pointer on the screen

108
• HandMouse
• Footmouse
• Touchpad
• Trackball and thumbwheels ;
• 2 orthogonal controls to control to the cursor
position.
• 2 modes for the numeric buttons :
• Keys mean digits
• Keys mean letter
109
• Joystick and keyboard nipple :
• The absolute and isometric
• Movement is important since the position of
the joystick in the base corresponds to the
position of the cursor.
• Isometric Joystick
• The pressure on the stick corresponds to the
velocity of the cursor.
110
• Touch-sensitive screens
• Allowing the user to point and select objects
on the screen , as they detect the pressure of
the user’s finger, or a stylus , on the screen
itself.
• Stylus – interrupting a light of Matrix beams
• Capacitance changes on a grid overlaying the
screen or by ultrasonic reflections
• Both input and output device
111
• Stylus and light pen
• Small pen-like plastic used to point and draw on the screen.
• Digitizing tablet :
• More specialized device typically used for freehand writing
• Resistive tablet :
• Detect points between 2 separated conducted sheets
• Magnetic tablet – detects current pulses in the magnetic field using
a small coil housed in a special pen.
• Sonic tablet – requires no special purpose.
• Can be used to detect relative or absolute motion but is an indirect
device since there is a mapping from a plane of operation of the
tablet to the screen.
• Be used for text input.

112
• Eyegaze ;
• Wear special glasses or a small-head mounted box
• Cursor keys and discrete positioning
• Various cursor keys layout
• Display Devices :
• Bitmaps displays –resolution and color
• One bitmap can store on/off information
• 8 bits/pixel give rise to 2 to the power 8 256 colors - colormap
• All computers are based on some sort of bitmap
• Vast numbers of colored dots or pixels in a rectangular grid.
• Pixels may be limited to black and white. , in grayscale or full color.

113
• The total no of pixels :
• Its standard computer display is always in 4:3
ratio , perhaps 1024 pixels across by 768 down or
1600*1200. for PDA this will be more in the order
of a few hundred pixels in each direction.
• The density of pixels
• Measured in pixels per inch. Unlike printers this
density varies little between 72 and 96 pixels per
inch.
114
• A monitor, LCD screen or other display device will
quote its maximum resolution.
• The screen may be 1200*900 resolution with 96 pixels
per inch but computer sends it only 800*600.
• Only 45 degree angle reproduce reasonably well, lines
at any other angles “jaggies”
• High resolution screens –anti-aliasing technique
• Our brains compensates and tides up blurred images.
• By blurring the image , anti-aliasing triggers this
processing in our brain and we appear to see a smooth
line at an angle.

115
• CATHODE RAY TUBES :
• Personal organizer or notebook computer .
• Smaller , lighter and consume far less power
than traditional CRTs.
• Flat-panel displays
• Matrix-addressable, individual pixels can be
accessed without the need for scanning.

116
• Large displays and situated displays :
• Use plasma technology to create large flat
bitmap displays
• Behave just like a normal screen except they
are big and usually have the HDTV wide screen
format which has aspect ratio 16:9 instead of
4:3 on traditional TV and monitors

117
• Special displays :
• Directed beam refresh or vector display, works
differently from a bitmap display, also known as raster
scan.
• Instead of scanning the whole screen sequentially and
horizontally , the random scan draws the lines to be
displayed directly.
• Direct view storage tube :
• Analogue storage oscilloscope,
• Screens have a high resolution , typically about 4096 *
3120 pixels, but suffers from low contrast, low
brightness and a difficulty in displaying color.
118
• Situated Display
• Notice-board display – just gone-out and timetable for the week or
calls you when get back.
• Digital Paper :
• Thin flexible materials that can be written to electronically
• Electronics embedded into the material allow each tiny sphere to
be rotated to make it black or white.
• When the electronic signal is removed the ball remains in its
orientation.
• In each tube is light-absorbing liquid and a small reflective sphere.
• The sphere can be made to move to the top surface or away it
making the pixel white or black.
• Again the sphere stays in its last position once the electronic signal
is removed.

119
• Soft printout
• Soft book
• Devices for VR and 3D interaction
• Positioning in 3D space
• Users need to navigate through this space and
manipulate the Virtual objects there.
• Not only position but also the orientation.

120
• Cockpit and Virtual Controls
• Desktop Virtual Reality to fly cockpit
• More prosaic ups/down/left/right.
• 3D Mouse
• Has 6 degree of freedom
• And also up/down angle (called pitch)
• Its left/right orientation ( yaw)
• And the amount it is twisted around its own axis ( called roll)
• Various sensors are used to track the mouse position and
orientation; magnetic coil, ultrasound and even mechanical joints
where mouse is mounted rather than like an angle-lamp.

121
• Dataglove :
• Consisting of a lycre glove with optical fibers laid along
the fingers, it detects the joint angles of fingers and
thumb.
• As the fingers are bent, the fibre optic cable bends too;
increasing bend causes more light to leak from the
fibre and the reduction is detected by the glove and
related to the degree of bend in the joint.
• Virtual reality Helmets :
• 1. they display the 3D world to each eye
• 2. they allow the user’s head position to be tracked

122
• Whole-body tracking
• Track different kinds of body movement.
• White spots are struck at various points of the
user’s body and the position of these tracked
using 2 or more cameras , allowing the
location of location of every joint to be
mapped.

123
• 3D Displays :
• Our eyes use cues to perceive depth in the real world
• Each eye sees only a flattened form of the world, like a
photograph
• One effect is stereoscopic vision
• To have a pair of special spectacles connected so that each
eye can be blanked out by timed electrical signals
• If this is synchronized with the frame rate of the computer
monitor, each eye sees alternate things
• Polarized filters in front of the monitor and spectacle with
different polarized lenses.
• With small vertical grooves forming hundreds of prism

124
• Each eye then only sees alternate dots on the
screen allowing a stereo image at half normal
horizontal resolution.
• Have very narrow viewing angles and are not
yet ready for family viewing.
• The images presented to the eye are
generated at some fixed focus, often
effectively with infinite depth of field.

125
• VR MOTION SICKNESS
• Using the position of the head to determine
right image to show.
• SIMULATORS and VR CAVES
• Within an environment where the virtual
world is displayed upon it.
• PHYSCIAL CONTROLS SENSORS AND SPECIAL
DEVICES
126
• Special displays :
• Flashing LEDs are used on the back of some computers to
signify the processor state.
• Sound output
• Telephone keypads offer sound different tones when the
keys are pressed.
• Touch feel and smell
• VR applications such as the use in Medical domains to
practice “surgical” procedures, the feel of an instrument
moving through different tissue type
• The instruments used to emulate these procedures have
force feedback , giving different amount of resistances
depending on the virtual operation.
127
• Haptic Devices :
• These various forms of force, resistance and texture that
influences our physical senses
• Texture is more difficult as it depends on small changes
between neighboring points on the skin.
• Physical controls
• The microwave has a soft plastic sheet with soft buttons,
the washing machines large switches and knobs and the
MiniDisc has small buttons and an interesting multi-
function button.
• Most keyboards have a small raised . on the ‘home’ keys for
touch typists and some calculators and phones do the same
on the ‘5’ key.

128
• Environment and Bio-Sensing
• Public washroom
• Open the door of a car.
• Temperature, movement ( ultrasound,
infrared and etc.,)
• Location ( GPS, Global positioning in Mobile
Devices )
• Weight ( pressure sensors)
129
• PAPER PRINTING AND LEARNING
• Paperless office
• Printing
• Any character set or graphic to be printed
• Limited by resolution of dots. ( dots/inch)
• Fonts and page description languages
• They incorporate text in many different fonts and sizes
, often italicized , emboldened and underlined
• Paint packages and “clip art”
• Page description language PostScript
• Programming language for printing
130
• The point is a printer’s measure and is about 1/72
of an inch.
• The point size of the font is related to its height.
• A 12 point font has about 6 lines /inch
• This shape of the font – by name
• Screen and page
• What you see is what you get.
• An A4 page is about 11 inches tall by 8 wide

131
• Scanner and OCR
• Flat-bed
• Hand-held
• Scanners returns up to 256 levels of gray or RGB
• Scanners are used in DTP for reading in hand drawn
pictures and photographs
• Desktop publishing the scanned image usually ends up
( after editing on paper ) back on paper, in electronic
publishing the scanned image is destined to be viewed
on screen.
• Point and click style of interaction

132
• Memory
• RAM and STM
• RAM Is volatile
• Some RAM non-volatile RAM stores its contents ,
perhaps with the aid of a battery.
• Flash memory , that sits between fixed content
ROM chips and normal RAM.
• Flash memory is relatively slow to write , but
once written retains its content even with no
power whatsoever.

133
• DISKS AND LTM
• LTM consists of disks, possible with small
tapes for backup and appropriate software to
generate and retrieve them.
• Magnetic Disks and Optical Disks
• Optical media are more robust than magnetic
disks and so it is easier to use a jukebox
arrangement

134
• Understanding speed and accuracy
• This book is about 32000 words or about 2 Mbytes, so it
would hardly make a dent in 256 MB
• Windowed Systems will run several applications
simultaneously, soon using up many megabytes.
• OS handle this by paging unused bits of programs out of
RAM onto disk or even swapping the entire program onto
Disk
• This makes little difference to the logical functioning of the
program , but has a significant effect on interaction.
• For ex, the program can be lazy about information transfer.

135
• Lowering our sights to still photographs, good digital
cameras usually take 2 to 4 Mega pixels at 24 bits
color- that is 10 Mbytes of raw uncompressed image.
• Compression
• Compression techniques can be used to the amount of
storage required for texts, bitmap and video.
• Huffman encoding gives short codes to frequent words
and run length encoding represents long runs of the
same value by length value pairs.
• Texts can be reduced by a factor of 5 and bitmaps often
compress 1% of their original size.
136
• Compute the difference between successive Frames
and then store only these – compressed.
• Store low quality video at 64 kbytes/sec
• 5 hrs of highly compressed video on our 1GB hard disk.
• Fractals
• That contains any image any parts which , when
suitably scaled, are similar to the whole.
• Fractal compression is especially good for featured
textures, which causes problems for other compression
techniques.

137
• The decompression of the image can be performed to
any degree of accuracy, from a very rough soft-focus
image, to one more detailed than the original.
• Storage formats and standards
• ASCII and UNICODE
• The most common shared format is RTF ( rich text
format), formatting information including style sheets.
• ISO Standards for document structure and interchange
• SGML ( Standard Generalized Mark-up Language)
• XML for Web applications

138
• Stored image
• Needs to record the size of the image
• The no of bits per pixel
• Possibly a color map
• As well as the bits of the image itself.
• Given the range of storage standards, there is no
easy advice as to which is best, but if you are
writing a word processor and are about to decide
how to store the document on disk, just for a
moment, before defining yet another format.

139
• Methods of access
• Standard database access is special key fields with an
associated index.
• The usability of the system is seriously impaired by
shortsighted reliance on a single key and index
• Most database systems will allow multiple keys and indices,
allowing you to find a record given partial information.
• Another more valid reason , reason for restricting the field
we index is privacy and security.
• Online index that , given a telephone number, would return
the name and address of the subscriber , but to protect the
privacy of their customers, this information is not divulged
to the general public.

140
• Do what I Mean DWIM
• Soundex , a way of indexing words, especially names.
• Forgiving systems : one should aim to accommodate the
user’s mistakes
• We do not want ATM machine not to give Money when the
PIN is almost correct.
• Not all databases allow long passages of text to be stored in
records, perhaps setting a maximum length for text
• Free txt retrieval system are centered on unformatted,
unstructured text
• Work by keeping an index of every word in every document

141
• Processing and Networks
• Effects of finite processing speed
• Functional fault
• The program is doing wrong things
• System buffers
• The user input
• Cursor tracking
• Character based text editors
• Due to processing speed
• When it is too slow
• When it is too fast

142
• The program does the right thing , but the
feedback is too slow , leading to strange
effects at the interface.
• The system buffers the user input.
• Left key and right key movement to set the
cursor on the position. ( overshoots)
• Bitmap screen often ‘flash’ up the new page,
giving no indication of direction of movement.

143
• The designer can demand fixed delays ( depending on media and
user preference ) rather than as fast as machine allows.
• Limitations on Interactive Performance
• Computational bound
• The user gets some idea of how job is progressing
• For a very long process try to give an indication of duration before it
starts.
• Storage channel bound
• The speed of memory access can interfere with interactive
performance
• Compressed data take less space to store data , and is faster to read
in and out

144
• Graphics Bound :
• Clever coding can reduce the time taken by
common graphics operation
• Special purpose graphics card to handle most
of the most graphical operations.
• Optimized for graphics operations and allow
the main processor to do other work such as
manipulating documents and other user data.

145
• Network capacity
• Network computers :
• A small computers with no disks whose sole purpose is
connect to up to networks
• Network systems have an effect of interactivity, over
and above , any additional access to distant peripherals
or information sources.
• The interaction between human and machine becomes
an open loop , rather than a closed one.
• Many people may be interacting with the machine at
once, and their actions may affect the response to your
own.
146
• Many machines accessing a single machine will slow its
response;
• The computer system, by the very nature of its
dispersal, distribution and multi-user access , has been
transformed from a fully predictable, deterministic
system, under the total control of the user, into a non-
deterministic one , with an individual user being
unaware of many important things that are happening
to the system as a whole.
• Pose a particular problem since ideals of consistency,
informative feedback and predictable response are
violated.

147
• The interaction :
• Interaction model help us to understand what
is going in an interaction between user and
system.
• They address the translation between what
user wants and what system does.
• Ergonomics look at the physical characteristics
of the interaction and how these influence its
effectiveness.
148
• The dialogue between user and system is
influenced by the style of the interface.
• The interaction takes place within a social and
organizational context that affects both user
and system.
• Introduction :
• How the human user uses the computer as a
tool to perform, simplify or support a task.

149
• Interaction :
• To identify and evaluate the components of interaction and
at the physical , social and organizational issues that
provide the context for it.
• Interaction involves at least 2 participants :
• The user and system
• Are different from each other in the way they communicate
and view the domain and task.
• Effectively translate between them to allow the interaction
to be successful.
• The use of models of interaction help us to understand
exactly what is going on in the interaction and identify the
likely root of difficulties.
150
• Norman-Execution Evaluation Cycle
• Describes the interaction in terms of goals and actions of
user
• The term of interaction
• To aid a user in accomplishing goals from some application
domain.
• Domain
• Defines an area of expertise and knowledge in some real-
world activity.
• Tasks are operations to manipulate the concepts of a
domain.
• A goal is the desired output from a performed task.

151
• A related goal would be to produce a solid red triangle
centered on the canvass.
• an intention is a specific action required to meet the
goal.
• Task analysis
• Identification of the problem space , for the user of the
interactive system, in terms of the domain, goals
,intentions and tasks.
• System and User
• Described by means of a language that can express
concepts relevant in the domain of the application.

152
• System language – core language – computational
attributes of the domain relevant to the system state
• Users’ language – task language – describes
psychological attributes of the user relevant to the
USER state.
• The execution-evaluation cycle
• User formulates a plan of action , which is then
executed at the computer interface.
• When the plan, or part of the plan is executed, the user
observes the computer interface, to evaluate the result
of the executed plan , and to determine further
actions.

153
• The stages in Normann model of interaction is as
follows :
• 1. Establishing the goal
• 2. forming the intention
• 3. specifying the action sequence
• 4. Executing the action
• 5. Perceiving the system state
• 6. interpreting the system state
• 7. Evaluate the system state with respect to the
goals and intentions.
154
• Gulfs of execution
• The difference between the user’s formulation
of the actions to reach the goal and the
actions allowed by the system.
• If the actions allowed by the system
correspond to those intended by the user, the
interaction will be effective.
• The interface should therefore try to reduce
this gulf.
155
• Gulf of evaluation :
• Distance between the physical presentation of
the system state and the expectation of the user.
• If the user can readily evaluate the presentation
in terms of his goal, the gulf of evaluation is
small.
• The more effort that is part of the user to
interpret the presentation, the less effective the
interaction.
156
• The interaction of framework
• Components in an interactive system
• System
• User
• Input
• Output
• Input and output together form Interface.

157
 THE GENERAL INTERACTION
FRAMEWORK

output
U
S
i

input

158
 TRANSLATION BETWEEN COMPONENTS

Observation
Presentation
O

i
articulation
Performance

159
• Articulation :
• In the input language
• Tasks – responses of the user and they need to be
translated to stimuli for the input.
• The responses of the input are translated to stimuli of
the system.
• This begins by translating the system translation to the
transition into stimuli for the output component.
• Preserve the relevant system attributed from the
domain in the limited expressiveness of the output
devices.

160
• Difficult in a command line argument to
determine the result of copying and moving
files in an hierarchical file system.
• Assessing the overall interaction
• As a means to justify overall usability of an
entire interactive system.
• Able to determine if the tools we use are
adequate.

161
• FRAMEWORKS AND HCI
• Provides a means of discussing the details of a
particular interaction.
• Presentation and screen design relates to the
output branch of the framework.
• Ergonomics
• Physical characteristics of the interaction; how
the controls are designed , the physical
environment in which the interaction takes place,
and the layout and physical layouts of the screen.

162
• Arrangements of control and display
• The command key to read articles from a newsgroup
• Ergonomics :
• The study of physical characteristics of the interaction;
• How the controls are designed
• The physical environment in which the interaction will
take place
• And the layout and physical qualities of the screen.

163
• Inappropriate placement of controls and displays can
lead to inefficiency and frustration.
• Sequential controls and displays are organized so that
those that are functionally related are placed together.
• Sequential controls and displays are organized to
reflect the order of their use in a typical interaction
• Frequency controls and displays are organized
accordingly to how frequently they are used, with the
most commonly used controls being most easily
accessible.

164
• The physical environment of the interaction
• Ergonomics concerned with the design of the work
environment itself.
• Where will the system be used ?
• By whom it will be used ?
• Will users be sitting , standing or moving?
• First consideration here is :
• Size of the user
• Smallest should be able to reach all the controls and
the larger user should not be cramped in the
environment.

165
• Seated for stability and comfort.
• Seating should provide back support
• Health Issues
• Physical position :
• Should be able to reach all controls comfortably and see all
displays.
• Temperature
• Extreme of hot /cold will affect performance and in
excessive cases health.
• Lightning
• Adequate lightning should be provided to allow users to
see the computer screen without discomfort or eyestrain.

166
• NOISE
• Loss of hearing
• Noise can be harmful to health, causing the user pain
and in acute cases loss of hearing.
• Time :
• The time user spend using the system should also be
controlled.
• The use of color
• Colors used in the should be distinct as possible and
the distinction should not be affected by changes in
contrast.

167
• Blue will not be used for critical information
• Red –Green-Yellow for stop go and standby.
• Red - To indicate emergency and alarms
• Green – Normal Activity
• Yellow – standby and auxiliary action
• Ergonomics and HCT
• Interaction styles :

168
• A no of common interfaces style including :
• Command line interface
• Menus
• NL
• Question/answer / query dialogue
• Form-fills and spreadsheets
• WIMP
• POINT AND CLICK
• 3D INTERFACES.

169
• COMMAND LINE INTERFACE :
• A means of providing instructions to the
computer directly using functional keys, single
characters, abbreviations or whole-word
commands.
• Using telnet.
• By using consistent and meaningful
commands and abbreviations.

170
• MENUS :
• The set of options available to the user is
displayed on the screen.
• Since options are visible they are less
demanding of the user, relying on recognition
and recall.

171
MENU-DRIVEN INTERFACE

PAYMENT DETAILS

PLEASE SELLECT PAYMENT MODE:

1, CASH
2, CHECK
3. CREDIT CARD
4.INVOICE

9. ABORT TRANSACTION.

172
• NATURAL LANGUAGE :
• The boy hit the dog with the stick
• We cannot be sure whether the boy holds the
stick or the dog is holding the stick when it is hit.
• Question/answer and query dialog
• Interfaces are easy to learn and use , but are
limited in functionality and power.
• Are appropriate for restricted domains.

173
• Query languages
• Used to retrieve information from a database.
• Validation is the result of search.
• Form fills and spreadsheets :
• Spreadsheets are sophisticated variation of form filling;
comprises a grid of cells
• The user can enter and alter values and formulate in any
order and the system will maintain consistency among the
values displayed , ensuring that all formula are obeyed.
• Users can manipulate to see the effects of changing
different parameters.

174
• The WIMP interface :
• Windows, Icons , Menus and Pointers
• MS windows for IBM PC Compatibles, MacOS for
Apple Machintosh compatibles and various X-
Windows based system for UNIX.
• Point and Click Interfaces
• Hypertext
• Mouse-based interfaces :
• In touchscreen information systems

175
• 3D Interfaces :
• Size , Light and occlusion provide a sense of
distance
• More complete 3D environments invite one to
move within the Virtual Environment, rather
than watch as a spectator.

176
• Windows
• They behave as if they were independent terminals in
their own right.
• A window can usually contain text or graphics and can
be moved or resized.
• Windows may be tiled when they adjoin but do not
overlap each other.
• May be placed in a cascading fashion, where each new
window is slightly placed to the left and previous
window.
• This layout policy is fixed, it can be selected by the
user.
177
• Scrollbars
• Excel and Word
• Each application has its own window and within
this each documents has a window.
• Icons :
• a small picture is used to represent a closed
window , this representation is known as an icon.
• Iconofying : shrinking a window to its icons

178
• Icons can be used to represent other aspects of
the system, such as waste-basket for throwing
unwanted to files or various disks , programs or
functions that are accessible to the user.
• Pointers :
• Pointing and selecting things such as icons.
• Mouse provides an input device capable of such
tasks, also joysticks and trackballs are other
alternatives.
• The user is presented with a cursor on the screen
that is controlled by the input device.
179
• Used to distinguish modes
• Pointers cursors are like small bitmap images, but
in addition to that all cursors have a hot-spot, the
location to which they point to.
• Menus :
• Presents a choice of operations or services that
can be performed by the system at a given time.
• Selection usually requires some additional user
action, such as pressing the button on the mouse
that controls the pointer cursor on the screen or
pressing some special key on the keyboard.
180
• Pin-up menus
• Staying in place explicitly asked to go-away
• Pie-Menus
• Takes up more screen space and are therefore
less common in interfaces.
• Buttons :
• Pushing a button invokes a command , the
meaning of which is indicated by a textual label
or a small icon.

181
• Buttons :
• Pushing a button invokes a command, the meaning of
which is usually indicated by a textual label or a small
icon.
• To toggle between 2 states, displaying status
information , whether the current font is italized or not
in a word processor, or selection options on a web
form.
• Toggle buttons :
• Be grouped together to allow a user to select one
feature from a set of mutually exclusive options, such
as size in points of the current font.

182
• Radio buttons :
• Since the collection functions much like the old-
fashioned mechanical control buttons on car
radios.
• CheckBox :
• If a set of buttons are not mutually exclusive ,
such as font characteristics such as bold, italics
and underlining , then a set of toggle buttons can
be used to indicate on/off status of the options.
183
• Toolbars :
• Fn is similar to menubar , but the icons are
smaller than the equivalent text more
functions can be simultaneously displayed.
• Often user can customize it.
• Pallets :
• Can enter one of several modes.

184
• The interpretation of actions, such as
keystrokes or gestures with the mouse ,
changes as the mode changes.
• Mode : Insert characters in the document
• File manipulation : command mode
• For making a set of possible modes and the
active mode visible to the user.

185
• The user may be able to “tear Off” the menu,
turning it into a palette showing the menu items.
• Line selection or color selection in a drawing
package.
• Dialog boxes
• Information windows used by the system to bring
the user’s attention to some important
information, possibly an error or warning used to
prevent a possible error.
186
• Interactivity
• Focuses entirely almost entirely on the choice
and specification of appropriate sequences of
actions and corresponding changes in the internal
state.
• Typically not used at a fine level of detail and
deliberately ignores the semantic level of an
interface.
• The validation of numeric information in a form-
based system.
187
• Speech based input is difficult ;
• Speech based interaction is easier.
• Modal dialog boxes :
• When the dialogue box appears the
application will not allow us to do anything
else until the dialog box has been completed
or cancelled.
• One should minimize the use of pre-emptive
elements ; allowing user Maximum flexibility.
188
• Interactivity
• When errors have occurred
• If users can detect errors then they can detect
them.
• The context of the Interaction :
• a single user operating a single, albeit complex,
machine.
• Users work within a wider and social
organizational context.
• Fears , allegiance , ambition and self-satisfaction.

189
• The managers choose the system not by the
users.
• There may be 3 results :
• The system will be rejected
• The user will be resentful and unmotivated
• Or the user will adapt the intended interaction
to his own requirements.

190
• The introduction of new technology
• May prove to be a motivation to users,
particularly if it is well designed, integrated
with the user’s current work and challenging.
• Feedback can be used to prevent frustration
on the part of the user.

191
• Fludity :
• Affordances
• The extend to which the physical structure and
manipulation of the device naturally relate to the
logical functions it relates.
• Some controls portray by their physical appearance the
underlying state by the control.
• Also able to see the power on computers and hifi
devices controlled by a push button – press for on,
then press again for off.
• The button does not reflect the state at all.

192
• Managing Value :
• Why should people want to use it?
• What value do they get from using it?
• Download time of an application
• Learning effort are incurred up front.
• Whereas often the returns – faster work and
enjoyment of use – are seen later.

193
• PARADIGMS :
• Effective strategies for building interactive
systems provide paradigms for designing
usable interactive systems
• Also provides a good perspective on the
history of interactive computing
• Introduction of time-sharing computers
through the WIMP and web, to ubiquitous
and context-aware computing.
194
• 1. how can an interactive system be developed to
ensure its usability ?
• 2. how can the usability of an interactive system be
demonstrated or measured ?
• Paradigm for interaction ?
• Time sharing
• It was becoming apparent that the explosion of growth
in computing power would be wasted if there was not
an equivalent explosion of ideas about how to channel
that power.
• A single computer may support multiple users.

195
• Video display units :
• Possibility of presenting and manipulating information
in the form of images on a Video Display Unit (VDU)
• Sketchpad program
• Programming toolkits :
• Personal computing :
• Provides a means for those with substantial computing
skills to increase their productivity greatly.
• By adapting the Graphical Programming Language to a
model which children could understand and use,

196
• Windows systems and the WIMP interface
• Computers systems for most part react to stimuli
provided by the user;
• As the user engages in more than one plan of
activity over a stretch of time, it becomes difficult
for him to maintain the status of the overlapping
threads of activity.
• Computer conversation on the display device
• The window is the common mechanism
associated with these physically and logically
separate devices.
197
• The Metaphor
• Turtle dragging its tail in the dirt.
• The blank space is a character which must be
inserted within a text just as any other character
is inserted.
• Direct manipulation
• Rapid visual and audio feedback on a high
resolution video display screen or through a high
quality sound system makes it possible to provide
evaluative information for every executed user
action.
198
• He highlights the following features of a direct
manipulation interface :
• Visibility of the objects of interest
• Incremental action at the interface with rapid feedback
on all actions.
• Reversibility of all actions, so that users are encouraged
to explore without severe penalties.
• Syntactic correction of all actions, so that every user
action is a legal operation.
• Replacement of complex command languages with
actions to manipulate directly the visible objects ( and
hence , the name , direct manipulation)
199
• Languages vs action :
• Actions performed at the interface replace any need to
understand their meaning at any deeper, system level.
• The user-system communication is by means of indirect
language instead of direct actions.
• First :
• The user understands how the system functions and the
interface as interlocutor need not perform much
translation.
• Second interpretation :
• Does not understand the user to understand the system’s
underlying structure.

200
• Because it is more active, some people refer to
the interface as an agent in these circumstances.
• Recognizing and pointing to an object reduces the
difficulty of identification and the possibility of
misidentification.
• Action and language paradigm need not be
completely separate.
• We can describe generic and repeatable
procedures in the language paradigm and not in
the action paradigm.
201
• Hypertext :
• Non-linear storage and retrieval of textual information
• Multi-Modality
• Relies on the multiple use of communication channels
• Computer supported cooperative work
• One result of this reconnection was the emergence of
collaboration between individuals via the computer – called
computer supported cooperative work.
• E-mail
• One user can compose a message and post it to another
user.
• Asynchronous CSCW.

202
• WWW:
• Web is built on the top of internet and offers an
easy to use , predominately graphical interface to
information , hiding the underlying complexities
of transmission protocols , addresses and remote
access to data.
• Agent –based interfaces
• Agents can perform repetitive tasks, watch and
respond to events when the user is not present
and even learn from the user’s own actions.
203
• To specify filters
• Simple if/then rule
• Ubiquitous Computing
• EAGAR
• User is repeating same actions again and again, it
suggests the next action.
• Ubiquitous Computing
• The user must know where the computer is and
must walk over to it to begin interacting with it.
• Anywhere, anytime, any device
204
• Tablet computers or research prototypes
• Interactive story book
• The influx of diverse computing devices represents 3rd wave
of computing
• The ratio of humans to computers drastically change
• First wave of computing – One large Mainframe
• Second wave of computing – PC equals no of users
• Third wave of computing – devices outnumber the people
• Technologies include – wireless networking, voice
recognition, camera vision systems, pen-based computing
and positioning system

205
• Allow different mode of interaction – voice, gesture,
handwriting
• Information is gathering from sensors in the environment (
Pressure mats, Ultrasonic movement detectors, weight
sensors, video cameras)
• In our information world ( web pages visited, times online,
book purchased online)
• That make inferences about our past patterns and current
context in order to modify the explicit interfaces we deal
with ( modify default menu options) or to do things in the
background ( adjust the air conditioning)
• In context –aware computing the interaction is more
implicit

206
• 1.Be right as often as possible, and useful
when acting on these correct predictions
• 2. do not cause an inordinate problems in the
event of an action resulting from a wrong
prediction.
• Ubiquitous computing – where
• Context –aware computing – what it means to
interact with a computer.

207
• UNIT 2 : INTERACTION DESIGN BASICS

208
• Design Process
• Addresses the critical feature of an interactive
system – usability from the human
perspective
• Interaction design Basics
• About creating interventions in often complex
situations using technology of many kinds
including PC software, the web and physical
devices.
209
• Design involves :
• Achieving goals within constraints and trade-
off between these
• Understanding the raw materials : computer
and human
• Accepting limitations of humans and of design
• The design process has several stages and is
iterative and never complete.
210
• Interaction starts with getting to know the users
and their context …
• Finding out who they are and what they are like
• Talking to them and watching them
• Scenarios are rich design stories , which can be
used and reused throughout design;
• They help us to see what users will want to do
• They give a step-by-step walkthrough of user’s
interactions, including what they see do and are
thinking

211
• Users need to find a way around a system :
they involve :
• - helping users know where they are , where
they have been and what they can do next
• Creating the overall structures that are easy to
understand and fit the user’s needs
• Designing comprehensible screens and control
panels

212
• Complexity of design means we don’t get it
right first time :
• So we need iteration and prototype to try out
and evaluate
• But iteration can get trapped in local maxima ,
design that have no simple improvements, but
not are good
• Theory and model can help give good start
points
213
• Introduction :
• Designing Interventions
• Intervene to change the situation for better.
• What is Design :
• Achieving goals within constraints
• Goals :
• What are the purpose of the design we are
intending to produce ?
• Who is it for?
• Why they want it ?
214
• Constraints?
• What materials must we use ?
• What standards must we adopt?
• How much can it cost?
• How much time do we have to develop it?
• Are there any health and safety issues?
• Does it have to withstand rain?

215
• Trade-offs
• Choosing which goals or constraints can be
relaxed so that others can be met ?
• The temptation is to focus on one or other
goal and optimize for this , then tweak the
design to make it just satisfy the constraints
and other goals

216
• The golden rule of design
• Understand your materials
• Ie., understand computers
• - limitations, capacities, tools and platforms
• Understand people
• - psychological , social aspects and human error
• To err is human:
• People make mistakes
• System should be designed to reduce the likelihood of
those mistakes and to minimize the consequences when
mistakes happen
• Bad design of Interface

217
 Interaction design process diagram
• The central message – the user
• The process of design

What is Scenarios and Task Analysis

wanted? Precise
Guidelines Speciifcation
Principles
Analysis
Interviews
Ethnography Implement
Design and
Deploy
Dialog
Architectures
Notations
Documentation
Prototype Evaluation Help
218
Heuristics
• Requirements
• What is wanted
• Analysis
• The results of observation and interviews need to
ordered in some way to bring out key issues and
communicate with the later stages of design
• Design
• How to do it

219
• Iteration and prototyping
• To evaluate a design and to see how well it is
working and where there can be improvements
• To produce early versions of systems to try out
real users
• Implementation and Deployment
• Involve writing code
• Making hardware
• Writing documentation and manuals

220
• USER’S FOCUS
• Know your user
• stakeholders
• People who are affected directly/indirectly by
the system.
• How do you to get to know your users?
• Who are they?

221
• Probably not like u.
• Talk to them
• Structured Interviews about their job or life
• Open-ended discussions
• Bringing the design users fully into the design
process ( Participatory Design )
• Useful , usable and Used
• How things really happen , not how the
organization says they should happen

222
• Watch them
• Tell you what they do
• Tell you why
• Use your Imagination
• Persona
• Rich picture of an imaginary person who
represents your core user group.

223
• Scenario
• Stories for design; rich stories for design
• Communicate with others
• Other clients , users and designers
• Easy to understand each other whilst discussing
abstract ideas.
• Validate other models
• A detailed scenario can be played against various
more formal representations such as task models
or dialog or navigational model

224
• Express Dynamics :
• Individual screen shots and pictures give a sense
of what a system would like , but how it behaves.
• Describes patterns of interaction with a system
• More complex and involve network of hierarchies
• In contrasts scenarios are linear –they represent
single path among all the potential interactions

225
• This linearity has both positive and negative
points
• Time is linear : our lives are linear as we live in
time and we find it easier to understand simple
linear narratives
• But no Alternatives :
• Real interactions have choices, some made by
people, some by systems
• A simple scenario does not show these
alternative paths. In particular, it is easy to miss
the unintended things a person may do.
226
• Scenarios are a resource that can be used and
reused throughout the design process ;
helping us see what is wanted, suggesting how
users will deal with the potential design,
checking the proposed implementations will
work, and generating test cases for final
evaluation.

227
• NAVIGATION DESIGN
• The object of design is not just a computer
system or device, but the socio-technical
interventions more
• Widgets ;
• The appropriate choice of widgets and
wordings in Menus and Buttons will help
know how to use them for a particular
selection or action.
228
• Screens or windows :
• Find things on the screen, understanding the
logical grouping of button.
• Navigation within the application:
• To understand where you are in the application.
• Environment :
• The word processor has to read documents from
disk, perhaps some are no remote networks. You
swap between applications, perhaps cut and
paste.

229
 Levels of Interaction

PC WEBSITE PHYSICAL
APPLICATI DEVICE
ON
WIDGETS FORM BUTTONS,
ELEMENTS DIALS,
, TAGS LIGHTS
AND LINKS AND
DISPLAYS
SCREEN PAGE PHYSICAL
DESIGN DESIGN LAYOUT
NAVIGATIO SITE MAIN
N DESIGN STRUCTUE MODES OF
RE DEVICE
CIPHER THE WEB, THE REAL
APP AND BROWSER, WORLD
OS EXTERNAL
LINKS

230
• Who is going to use the application?
• How do they think about it?
• What will they do with it?
• This can then drive the second task- thinking about
structure. Individual screens or the layout devices will
have their own structure.
• Consider 2 main kinds of issue:
• Local structure
• -- looking from one screen or page out
• Global Structure
• -- structure of site, movement between screens.

231
• Local structure
• Knowing where you are
• Knowing what you can do
• Knowing where you are going – or what will
happen
• Knowing where you have been – or what you
have done
• The screen, web page or device displays should
make clear where you are in terms of the
interaction or state of the system

232
• What you can do – what can be pressed or
clicked to do somewhere or do something.
• Lost in Hyperspace
• The feeling of disorientation when you do not
have sufficient means to know where you are
and where you have been has been called “
lost in Hyperspace”
• History system

233
• Global structure – Hierarchical Organization
• Organized along some functional boundary ,
but may be organized by roles, user type or
some more esoteric breakdown such as
modules in an educational system.
• The hierarchy links screens, pages or states in
logical grouping

234
APPLICATION FUNCTIONAL HIERARCHY

THE SYSTEM

INFOR AND
HELP MGMT MESSAGEA

ADD USER REMOVE USER

235
• GLOBAL STRUCTUE – DIALOG
• Dialog to refer to this pattern of interactions
between the user and a system.
• Consider the following fragment from a marriage
service :
• Minister – do you name take the woman
• Man – I do
• Minister – do you name take this man…
• Woman – I do
• Minister – I now pronounce you man and wife.
236
• To describe a full system we need to take into
account different paths through the system.
• A simple way to use a network diagarm showing
the principal states or screens linked together
linked with arrows . This can :
• Show what leads to what
• Show what happens when
• Include branches and loops
• Be more task-oriented than a hierarchy

237
 Network of screens/states
• The arrow shows the general flow between
the states.

238
• Wider still
• Style issues :
• Normally conform to platform standards, such
as positions for menus on a PC applications.
• Functional Issues
• Need to be able to interact with files, read
standard formats and be able to handle cut
and paste.
239
• Navigation issues :
• Need to support linkages between
applications, allowing embedding of data from
one application in another or in a mail
system, being able to double click an
attachment icon and have the right
application launched for the attachment.

240
• SCREEN DESIGN AND LAYOUT
• The basic principles at the screen level reflect
those in other areas of interaction design:
• Ask : what is the user doing?
• Think : what information is required ? What
comparisons may the user need to make ? In
what order are things likely to be needed ?
• Design – form follow functions: let the
required interactions drive the layout.
241
• Tools for layout :
• Grouping and structure :
• Order of groups and items
• Screen seems to naturally suggest reading or
filling in the billing details , first , followed by the
delivery details , followed by the individual order
items
• What is the natural order for the user?
• We may also want to force a particular order ; we
do not forget the credit card details.

242
• Decoration :
• uses boxes and a separating line to make the
grouping clear.
• Font style
• Text or background colors
• Alignment
• For users who read txt from left to right , lists of
text items should normally be aligned to the left.

243
 √
Alan Dix Dix, Alan
Jannet finley Finley, Janet
Gregory Abowd Abowd,
√ Greogory
Russel Beale
Alan Dix Beale, Russel
Janet Finlay
Gregory Abowd
Russel Beale

244
• White space :
• The space between letters is called the counter
• If one ignores the ‘content’ of a screen and
instead of concentrates on the counter – the
space between elements – one can get an overall
feel for the layout,
• The continuous areas of texts or graphics
• 1) we can see space used to separate blocks as
we often see in gaps between paragraphs or
space between sections in a report.

245
• Ii ) there are clearly 4 main areas; ABC, D, E and F.
Within one of these are 3 further areas , A,B, C
which themselves are grouped as A on its own,
followed by B and C together.
• Space used to highlight
• User action and control :
• Entering information:
• The screen not only consists not only of
information presented to the user, but also of
places for the user to enter information or select
options.
246
• Knowing what to do
• A button says “bold” does this represent the
current state of a system or the action that
will be performed if the button is pressed ?
• Affordance :
• One can either mimic real-world objects
directly, or try to emulate the critical aspects
of those objects.

247
• Appropriate appearance :
• Presenting information :
• Txts, numbers , maps , tables : on the
technology available to present in character
display ; line drawing ; graphics ,VR
• The file is in Alphabetical order

248
• HCI in the software process :
• Software engineering provides a means of understanding
the structure of the design process, and that process can be
assessed for its effectiveness in interactive system design
• Usability engineering promotes the use of explicit criteria
to judge the success of a product in terms of its usability
• Iterative design practices work to incorporate crucial
customer feedback early in the design process to inform
critical decisions which affect usability.
• Design involves making many decisions among numerous
alternatives. Design rationale provides an explicit means of
recording those design decisions and the context in which
the decisions were made.

249
• Software life cycle :
• Activities in the Life cycle :
• Requirement Specification
• Architectural Design
• Detailed Design
• Coding and Unit Testing
• Integration and Testing
• Maintenance

250
• Validation and Verification :
• Validation : Designing the right thing High level
requirements agreed with customer and verification : “
Designing the thing right “is also complete and internally
consistent.
• Management and Contractual Issues :
• First conceptual then production level
• Temporal relationships between various activities is more
important.
• Temporarily bound phases
• A phase is usually defined in terms of documentation taken
as input to the phase and the documentation delivered as
output from the phase.
251
• Interactivity system and the software life cycle
• Data –processing application in business
• Pipeline manner
• The actual design process is iterative .
• Interactive system cannot be determined from
the start
• System be built and the interaction with users
observed and evaluated in order to document
how make them more usable.

252
• This dearth of predictive psychology theory
means that in order to test certain usability
properties of their designs, Designers must
observe how actual users interact with developed
product and measure their performance.
• Usability Engineering
• Engineering depends on interpretation against a
shared background of meaning, agreed goals and
an understanding of how satisfactorily
completion will be judged.
253
• Simple to derive measurements of activity
beyond the physical actions in the world, and
so usability engineering is limited in its
application.
ATTRIBUTE BACKWARD RECOVERABILITY
MEASURING UNDO AN ERRONEOUS
CONCEPT : PROGRAMMING SEQUENCE
MEASURING NO OF EXPLICIT USER ACTIONS TO
METHOD UNDO CURRENT PROGRAM
NOW LEVEL NO CURRENT PRODUCT ALLOWS SUCH
AN UNDO
WORST CASE AS MANY ACTIONS AS IT TAKES TO
PROGRAM IN MISTAKE 254
• Recoverability refers to the ability to reach a desired
goal after recognition of some error in previous
interactions.
• The backward recoverability attribute is defined in
terms of a measuring concept, which makes the
abstract attribute more concrete by describing it in
terms of the actual product.
• The measuring method states how the attribute will be
measured , in this case by the no of explicit user
actions required to perform the undo, regardless of
where the user is in the programming sequence.

255
• The now level :
• The value for measurement with the existing
system, whether it is a computer based or not.
• The worst case – lowest acceptable measurement
for the task , providing a clear distinction
between what will be acceptable and
unacceptable in the final product.
• Planned level – target for the design and the best
case is the level which is agreed to be the best
possible measurement given the current state of
development tools and technology
256
• See levels w.r.t information on :
• 1.an existing system or previous version
• 2. competitive system
• 3. carrying out the task without use of a computer
system
• 4. an absolute scale
• 5. your own prototype
• 6. user’s own earlier performance
• 7. each component of a system separately
• 8. a successive split of the difference between best and
worst values observed in user tests.

257
• Iterative design :
• A purposeful design process which tries to overcome the
inherent problems of incomplete requirement specification
by cycling through several designs, incrementally improving
upon the final product with each pass.
• Throw – away
• The prototype is built and tested
• Incremental
• As separate components ,one at a time.
• There is overall design for the final system, but it is
partitioned into independent and smaller components

258
• Evolutionary :
• The prototype is not discarded and serves as
the basis for the next iteration of design.
• The actual system is seen as evolving from a
very limited initial version to its final release.

259
• Prototypes differ according to the amount of
functionality and performance they provide
relative to the final product
• Time
• It takes time to build prototype
• Planning
• Do not have the experience necessary for
adequately planning and costing a design
process which involves prototyping.
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• Non-functional features
• Safety and reliability
• Contracts :
• Which are affected by many of these managerial
and technical issues.
• Techniques for prototyping :
• Storyboards :
• Graphical depiction of the outward appearance of
the intended system , without any accompanying
system functionality.

261
• Limited Functionality Simulations :
• More functionality must be built into the
prototyping to demonstrate the work that the
application will accomplish .
• Some portion of the functionality must be
simulated by the design team.
• Can rapidly build graphical and textual interaction
objects and attach some behavior to those
objects, which mimics the system functionality
262
• High level programming support :
• Which makes it easy for the designer to
program certain features of an interactive
system at the expense of other system
features like speed of response or space
efficiency.
• A User Interface Management System – can
be considered to provide such high-level
programming support.

263
• Warning about iterative design :
• Design inertia can be so great as never to
overcome an initial bad decisions
• Design Rationale :
• Information that explains why a computer
system is the way it is including its structural
or architectural description and its functional
or behavioral description.

264
• Provides a communication mechanism among the
members of a design team so that during later
stages of design and/or maintenance it is possible
to understand what critical decisions were made.
• Accumulated knowledge
• Form of design rationales for a set of products
• Effort required to produce a design rationale
forces the designer to deliberate more carefully
about design decisions.
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• No single best design alternative
• Usability is very dependent on the context of its user.
• Process-Oriented Design Rationale
• Issue-based information system
• A style for representing design and planning
• A root issue is created which represents the main
problem or question that the argument is addressing.
• Various positions are put forth as potential resolutions
for the root issue and they are depicted as descendents
in the IBIS hierarchy directly connected to the root
issue.

266
• Each position is then supported or refuted by
arguments, which modify the relationships
between issues and position.

267
 Design Rules
• Designing for maximum usability is the goal of
interactive system design
• Abstract principles offer a way of understanding
usability in a more general sense, especially if we
can express them within some coherent catalog.
• In the form of standards and guidelines provide
direction for design, in both general and more
concrete terms, in order to enhance the
interactive properties of the system
268
• The essential characteristics of good design are often
summarized through “golden rules” or heuristics
• Design patterns provide a potentially generative approach
to capturing and reusing design knowledge.
• Introduction :
• Authority
• An indication of whether or not the rule must be followed
in design or whether it is only suggested.
• Generality
• Whether the rule can be applied to many design situations
or whether it is focused on a more limited application
situation.

269
• Principles to support Usability
• Learn-ability – the ease with which new users
can begin effective interaction and achieve
maximum performance.
• Flexibility – the multiplicity of ways in which
the user and system exchange information
• Robustness – the level of support provided to
the user in determining successful
achievement and assessment of goals.
270
PRINCIPLE DEFINITION RELATED PRINCIPLES
PREDICTABILITY Supports for the user to Operation visibility
determine the effect of
future action based on past
interaction history
SYNTHESIZABILITY Supports for the user to Immediate/eventual
assess the effect of past honesty
operations on the current
state
FAMILIARITY The extend to which a Guessability/affordance
user’s knowledge and
experience in other real-
world or computer-based
domains can be applied
when interacting with a
new system
GENERALIZABILITY Support for the user to 271
• Predictability
• Deals with the user’s ability to determine the
effect of operations on the system.
• Operation visibility
• How the user is shown the availability of
operations that can be performed next.
• Superiority in humans of recognition over
recall.
272
• Synthesizability
• The principle of honesty : the ability of the
user interface to provide an observable and
informative account of such change.
• This notification can come immediately,
should appear eventually, after explicit user
directives to make the change observable.

273
• Familiarity
• The familiarity of an interactive system measures
the correlation between the user’s existing
knowledge and the knowledge required for
effective interaction.
• There are intrinsic properties “ Affordance’
• visual objects that suggest to us how they can
be manipulated.
• The appearance of the object simulates a
familiarity with its behavior

274
• Generalizability
• Users often try to extend their knowledge of
specific interaction behavior to situations that
are similar but previously unencountered.
• It can be seen as a form of consistency
• Consistency :
• Relates to the likeness in behavior arising from
similar situations or similar task objectives.
• Consistency is probably the most widely
mentioned principle

275
PRINCIPLE DEFINTION RELATED PRINCIPLE
Dialog Initiative Allowing the user SYSTM /USER
from artificial PRE-EMPTIVENESS
constraints on the
input dialog
imposed by the
system
Multi-threading Ability of the Concurrent vs
system to support Interleaving
user interaction Multi-Modality
pertaining to more
than one task at a
time
Task Migratability The ability to pas
control for the
execution of a given
task so that it 276
becomes either
• FLEXIBILITY
• Multiplicity of ways in which the end-user and the
system exchange information.
• Dialog Initiative :
• system Pre-emptive dialog
• The system can initiate all dialog, in which case the
user simply responds to requests for information.
• User Pre-Emptive
• system may control the dialog to the extent that it
prohibits the user from initiating any actions towards
the system

277
• Multi-threading
• A thread of dialog is a coherent subset of that dialog.
• User-system dialog allows for interaction to support more
than one task at a time.
• Concurrent Multi-threading :
• How separate modalities ( or channels of communications)
are combined to form a single input or output expression.
• A single expression can be formed by a mixing of channels
• We could consider chord sequences of input with a
keyboard beep.

278
• Whether it allows concurrent or interleaved
use of multiple modes.
• Each window can represent a different task.
• A multi-modal can allow for concurrent multi-
threading
• Task Migratability
• Concerns the transfer of control for execution
of tasks between system and user.
279
• Spell checking
• Equipped with a dictionary, we are perfectly able
to check the spelling by reading through the
entire paper and correcting mistakes as we spot
them.
• Substitutability
• Equivalent values can be substituted for each
other
• By avoiding unnecessary calculations in the user’s
head, substituvity can minimize user errors and
cognitive effort.
280
• Representation Multipliticity
• Illustrates flexibility for state rendering
• Temp of physical object – Digital Thermometer
if a numerical value needed or a graph if it is
important to notice trends.
• Equal Opportunity
• Blurs the distinction between input and
output; the user has the choice of what is
input and what is output.
281
• Customizability
• Modifiability of the user interface by the user
or the system.
• Rather we are concerned with the automatic
modification that the system would make
based on its knowledge of the user.
• User –initiated – Adaptability
• System-initiated - adaptivity
282
• Adaptability
• Refers to the user’s ability to adjust the form of input and
output.
• Lexical customization:
• surface of the interface
• Overall structure of interaction is kept unchanged.
• Adaptivity
• Automatic customization of the user interface by the
system.
• Decisions for adaptation can be based on user expertise or
observed repetition of certain task sequences.

283
PRINCIPLE DEFINITION RELATED
PRINCIPLES
OBSERVABILITY Ability of the Browsability ,
user to static/dynamic
evaluate the defaults,
internal reachability,
state of the persistence ,
system from operation
its visibility
perceivable
representati
on.
RECOVERABILITY Ability of the Reachability,
user to take forward/backw
corrective ard recovery,
action once commensurate
an error has effort
284
been
• Repetitive tasks can be detected by observing
user behavior and macros can be
automatically ( or with user consent)
constructed from this observation to perform
repetitive tasks automatically.
• Robustness :
• In a work or task domain, a user is engaged
with a computer in order to achieve some set
of goals.

285
• The robustness of that interaction covers features that
support successful achievement and assessment of
goals.
• Here we describe principles that support robustness.
• Observability
• Allows the user to evaluate the internal state of the
system by means of its perceivable representation at
the interface.
• Evaluation allows the user to compare the current
observed state with his intention within the task –
action plan, possibly leading to a plan revision.
286
• Browsability
• Allows the user to explore the current internal
state of the system via the limited view
provided at the interface.
• This is the reason, why the notion of task is
used , in order to constrain the domain
information needed at one time to a subset
connected with the user’s current activity.

287
• The availability of defaults can assist the user by
passive recall .
• It also reduces the no of physical actions
necessary to input a value.
• There are 2 kinds of default values
• Static /dynamic
• Defaults evolve during the session.
• They are computed by the system by previous
user inputs; the system is then adapting default
values.

288
• Reachability
• Refers to the possibility of navigation through
the observable system states.
• The main notion is whether the user can
navigate from any given state to any other
state.
• Affects the recoverability of the system,
• Different levels of reachability can reflect the
amount of flexibility in the system as well
289
• Persistence :
• Duration of the effect of a communication act
and the ability of the user to make use of that
effect.
• Visual communication, on the other hand, can
remain as an object which the user can
subsequently manipulate long after the act of
presentation.

290
• Recoverability
• The ability to reach a desired goal after recognition of
some error in a previous interaction.
• Forward error recovery :
• The acceptance of the current state and negotiation
from that state towards the desired state.
• Backward error recovery
• An attempt to undo the effects of previous interaction
in order to return to a prior state before preceding;

291
• Recovery can be initiated by the system by the
user.
• Recoverability – notion of fault tolerance , safety
and reliability and dependability
• Concerned with system functionality
• Initiated by the user, it is important that it
determines the intent of the user’s recovery
actions;
• Forward ( backward ) recoverability ( undo/redo
actions) corrective action.

292
• Principle of commensurate effort states that if it is
difficult to undo a given effect on the state, then it
should have been difficult to do in the first place
• Conversely easily undone actions should be easily
doable.
• Responsiveness
• Measures the rate of communication between the
system and the user.
• Response time – duration of time needed by the
system to express state changes to the user.
• Short durations and instantaneous response times are
desirable.
293
• Stability
• Covers the invariance of the duration for identical or similar
computational resources.
• Pull-down menus are expected to pop-up instantaneously as soon
as the mouse button is pressed.
• Task conformance
• Addresses the coverage issue and
• Task adequacy – addresses the user’s understanding of the tasks.
• Since the purpose of an interactive system is to allow a user to
perform various tasks in achieving certain goals within a specific
application domain, whether the system supports all of the tasks of
interest and whether it supports these as the user wants.

294
• Standards
Stds can apply specifically to either hardware or
the software used to build the interactive system.
• Underlying theory
• Standards based on an understanding of known,
fixed , and readily adaptable to design of the
hardware.
• Software standards are based on theories from
psychology or cognitive science, less well formed,
still evolving and not very easy to interpret in the
language of software design.
295
• Change :
• Hardware is more difficult and expensive to
change than software, very flexible.
• Requirements changes for hardware do not
occur as frequently as for software.
• Since standards are also relatively stable, they
are more suitable for hardware than software.

296
• Part 1 : Introduction
• Part 2 : Body Size
• Part 3 : Body Strength and Stamina
• Part 4 : Workplace design
• Part 5 : Stresses and Hazards
• Part 6 : Vision and Lightning.
• Part 7 : Visual Displays
• Part 8 : Auditory Information
• Part 9 : voice Communication
• Part 10 : Controls
• Part 11 : Design for Maintainability
• Part 12 : Systems

297
• Usability
• The effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with
which specified users achieve specified goals in
particular environments.
• Efficiency :
• The resources expended in relation to accuracy
and completeness of goals achieved.
• Satisfaction :
• The comfort and acceptability of the work system
to its users and other people affected by its use.

298
• Guidelines :
• Incompleteness of theories underlying the
design of interactive software makes it
difficult to produce authoritative and specific
standards.
• The more abstract the guideline, the more it
resembles the principles that we outlined.
• The more specific the guideline, the more
suited it is to detailed design.
299
• The basic categories of the smith and Mosier
guidelines are :
• 1. Date Entry
• 2. Data Display
• 3. Sequence Control
• 4. User Guidance
• 5. Data Transmission
• 6. Data Protection.

300
• Substituivity
• Able to substitute color-coded information
and other means to represent some important
information.
• Observability
• The system being able to provide the user
with enough information about its internal
state to assist in task.
• Relying strictly on color-coded information.
301
• Synthesis :
• If a change of color is used to indicate the
changing status of some system entity. Those
who cannot detect the change in color would
be deprived of this information.
• Golden rule and Heuristics
• They do provide a useful checklist or summary
of the essence of the design advice.

302
• Shneiderman’s Eight golden rules of Interface Design.
• 1. strive for consistency in action sequences, layout ,
terminology , command use and so on.
• 2. Enable frequent users to use shortcuts, such as
abbreviations, special key sequences and macros to
perform regular , familiar actions more quickly
• 3. offer Informative feedback for every user action, at a
level appropriate to the magnitude of the action.
• 4. Design Dialogs to yield closure so that the user
knows when they have completed a task.

303
• 5. offer error prevention and simple error handling
• Users are prevented from making mistakes and if they do, they are
offered clear and informative instructions to enable them to
recover.
• 6. Permit easy reversal of actions
• To relieve anxiety and encourage exploration , since the user knows
that he can always return to the previous state.
• 7. support internal locus of control;
• The user is in control of the system, which responds to his actions
• 8. reduce short –term Memory load :
• Keeping display simple, consolidating , multiple page displays and
providing time for learning action sequence.

304
• HCI PATTERNS :
• Pattern are an approach to capturing and reusing
this knowledge – of abstracting the essential
details of successful design so that these can be
applied again and again in new situations.
• A pattern is an invariant solution to a recurrent
problem within a specific context.
• Patterns address the problems that designers
face by providing a ‘solution statement’.
305
• They capture design practice and embody
knowledge about successful solutions they come
from practice rather than psychological theory.
• They capture essential common properties of
good design; they do not tell the designer how to
do something but what needs to be done and
why.
• They represent design knowledge at varying
levels, ranging from social and organizational
issues through conceptual design to detailed
widget design.

306
• They are not neutral but embody values within
their rationale.
• Clearly expresses his values about architecture.
• HCI Patterns can express values about what is
humane in interface design.
• The concept of a pattern language is generative
and can therefore assist in the development of
complete design
• They are generally intuitive and readable and can
therefore be used for communication between all
stakeholders.
307
• IMPLEMENTATION SUPPORT
• Programming tools for interactive systems
provide a means of effectively translating abstract
designs and usability principles into an exe form.
• These tools provide different levels of services for
the programmer.
• Windowing systems are a central environment for
both the programmer and user of an interactive
system, allowing a single workstation to support
separate user-system threads of action
simultaneously.
308
• Interaction toolkits abstract away from the
physical separation of input and output devices,
allowing the programmer to describe behaviors
of objects at a level similar to how user perceives
them.
• UI management system are the final level of
programming support tools, allowing the
designer and programmer to control the
relationship between the presentation objects of
a toolkit with their functional semantics in the
actual application.

309
• INTRODUCTION
• The detailed specification gives the
programmer instructions as to what the
interactive application must do and the
programmer must translate that into machine
instructions to say how that will be achieved
on the available hardware devices.

310
• Elements of windowing system
• Bring the programming independence from
the specifics of hardware devices.
• The programmer wants to direct commands to
an Abstract Terminal, which understands a
more generic language and can be translated
to the language of many other specific
devices language and can be translated to the
language of many other specific devices.

311
• A given windowing system will have a fixed generic
language for the abstract terminal which is called the
imaging model.
• Sufficient to describe very arbitrary images.
• Windowing system provide this capability by sharing the
resources of a single hardware configuration with several
copies of an abstract terminal
• Independence :
• We can see the role of a windowing system
• Independence ; from the specifics of programming separate
hardware devices
• Management : multiple independent but simultaneously
active applications
312
• Inter client communication conventions
manual.
• Rules for transferring data between clients
• Methods for selecting the active client for
input focus
• Layout schemes for overlapping/tiled
windows as screen regions

313
• Programming the Appl
• Read-evaluation loop , which is internal to the
application program itself
• The server sends user inputs as structured
events to the client application.
• The client application is programmed to read
any event passed to it and determine all of the
application-specific behavior that results as a
response to it.
314
• In pseudocode the real-evaluation loop would look like the
following :
• Repeat
• Read-event ( myevent)
• Case myevent.type
• Type_1 :
• Do type_1 processing
• Type_2 :
• Do type_2 processing
• type_n :
• Do type_n processing
• End case
• End repeat

315
• Programming paradigms
• Notification-based
• The main control loop for the event processing
does not reside within the application.
• The appl program in a way declared by the
program
• It informs the notifier which events are of interest
to it and for each event declares one of its own
procedures as a callback before turning control
over to the notifier.

316
• When the notifier receives an event from the
window system, it sees if that event was
identified by the application program and, if so,
passes the event and control over to the callback
procedure that was registered for the event.
• After processing , the callback procedure returns
control to the notifier, either telling it to continue
receiving events or requesting termination.

317
• Control flow is centralized in the notifier,
which relieves the application program of
much of the tedium of processing every
possible event passed to it by the window
system.
• The pre-emptive dialog effectively discards all
subsequent user actions except for ones that
it requires, say selection by the user inside a
certain region of the screen.

318
• Type_2
• The application then begins another read-evaluation
loop, all non-relevant events can be received and
discarded.
• Repeat
• Read-event (myevent)
• Case myevent.type
• Type_1 :
• Do type_1 processing
• Type_2 :
• …

319
• If (error-condition) then
• Repeat
• Read-event (myevent2)
• Case myevent2.type
• Type_1;
• .
• .
• .
• Type_1;
• End case
• Until ( end_conditions)
• End if
• …
• Type_n;

320
• Do type_n processing
• End case
• Until (end of condition)
• Using Toolkits
• The input coming from the hardware device is separate
from the output of the mouse cursor is linked with the
physical movement of the mouse device, the user feels
as if he is actually moving the visual cursor.
• The visual cursor and physical device are referred to
simply as “the mouse”

321
• The sample program quit.c uses the Xview Toolkit.
• Programming with toolkits is suited to the notification-
based programming paradigm.
• The button interaction object in the toolkit already
been defined what actual user action is classified as
the selection event.
• One of the advantages of programming with toolkit is
that they can enforce consistency in both input form
and output form by providing object , within the same
appl program or between different ones, by default the
developers for the different applications use the same
toolkit.

322
• First :
• They depend on being able to define a class of
interaction objects which can then be invoked ( or
instantiated) many times within one application with
only minor modifications to each instance.
• Second
• Building complex interaction objects is made easier by
building up their definition based on existing simpler
interaction objects.
• These notions of instantiations and inheritance are
cornerstones of OOP.
• Classes are defined as templates
323
• User interface management systems
• Toolkits provide only a limited range of
interaction objects, limiting the kinds of
interactive behavior allowed between user and
system.
• User Interface Management Systems ;
• Conceptual architecture for the structure of an
interactive system which concentrates on a
separation between appl semantics and
presentation.
324
• Techniques for implementing a separated application and
presentation whilst preserving the intended connection
between them
• Support techniques for managing, implementing and
evaluating a run-time interactive environment
• UMS as a conceptual Architecture
• A major issue in this area of research is one of separation
between the semantics of the application and the interface
provided for the user to make use of that semantics
• Portability
• To allow the same application to be used on different
systems it is best to consider the development separate
from its device-dependent interface

325
• Reusability
• Separation increases the likelihood that
components can be reused in order to cut
development costs
• Multiple Interfaces :
• To enhance the interactive flexibility of an
application, several different interfaces can be
developed to access the same functionality.

326
• Customization
• Can be customized by both the designer and
the user to increase the effectiveness without
having to alter the underlying application.
• A dialog control :
• 3 major components of an interactive system:
the application, the presentation and the
dialog control.

327
• Presentation
• The component responsible for the appearance
of the interface, including what output and input
is available to the user.
• Dialog Control : The component which regulates
the communication between the presentation
and the application
• Application Interface ;
The view of the application semantics that is
provided as the interface.

328
• Semantic feedback
• How to build a large and complex interactive
system from smaller components.
• Model-View-controller
• Multi-agent architecture
• Presentation-abstraction-control PAC

329
• IMPLEMENTATION CONSIDERATIONS
• The use of callback procedure in notification-
based programming is one way to implement
the application interface as a notified.
• Menu networks :
• Communication between application and
presentation is modeled as a network of
menus and submenus.

330
• The menu is used to embody all possible user inputs at
any one point in time.
• A menu need not have to be linear list of textual
actions.
• A menu can be represented as graphical items or
buttons that the user can select with a pointing device.
• Grammar Notations
• The dialog between application and presentation can
be treated as a grammar of actions and response and
therefore, described by means of a formal context-free
grammar notations.
331
• State transition diagrams
• A graphical means of expressing dialog
• Event languages
• Similar to grammar notations except that they
can be modified to express directionality and
support some semantic feedback.

332
• Declarative Language :
• A declarative approach concentrates more on
describing how presentation and application are
related. The relationship can be modeled as a
shared database of values that both presentation
and application can access.
• in terms of communication between application
and presentation, not event sequencing.
•
333
• Constraints :
• Make explicit the connection between independent
information of the presentation and the application.
• Implicit in the control component of PAC model is the
notion of constraint between values of the application
and values of the presentation.
• Constraints embody dependencies between different
values that must be always maintained.
• Describing the link in terms of constraints is a way of
achieving an independent description of the dialog
controller.
334
• Graphical Specification
• Programming by Demonstration
• Allow the dialog specification to be
programmed graphically in terms of the
presentation language itself.
• Presentation control :
• As we proceed away from internal control of
dialog in the application itself to external
control in an independent dialog component.
335
THE END

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